


terms such as would enter at a lady's ear

by damnedscribblingwoman



Category: 14th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Marriage Proposal, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, Tide of History Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnedscribblingwoman/pseuds/damnedscribblingwoman
Summary: Joan was no longer a married woman, but she might as well be, for all the difference it made. She couldn't be Edward's, and he could never be hers. Husband or no husband, it made no difference. Joan knew it, and Edward knew it too, for all that he liked to ignore such pesky and inconvenient things as husbands — dead or alive — and royal parents and their royal expectations, and the very real demands of his royal responsibilities.And yet, despite knowing it, here he was, on her doorstep, asking again for impossible things.
Relationships: Edward the Black Prince/Joan of Kent
Comments: 22
Kudos: 40
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	terms such as would enter at a lady's ear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [categranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/categranger/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy it, categranger! Happy Yuletide :)
> 
> A very big thank you to sinkauli for beta reading this story! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

The crowded hall was small for so large a number, but none of the assembled company seemed to mind it as they ate, laughed, toasted their host and spoke to, or at, or over each other in loud, booming voices. The unexpected arrival of the Prince of Wales and his men had thrown the household into disarray, but Joan's staff had performed a minor miracle and produced a feast fit for a prince with what little was left of the winter stores.

The revelries didn't show any signs of winding down anytime soon. It had been a long, cold winter, and everyone — from Joan's ladies to her husband's retainers, to the lowest kitchen maid in her employ — seemed happy for the distraction. Nor were her children any more inclined to miss out on the night's events. Joan's namesake, all of four years old, had fallen asleep by the fire, curled up with two of her father's greyhounds. She should have been in bed hours ago. It was well past John's bedtime too, and even Thomas — who at ten years old thought himself very grown-up indeed — should have long ago retired for the night. But they didn't go, and Joan didn't make them. She was only too glad to have her people around her, to have her children around her, like armour.

"I would have you grant me a private audience," Edward said under the general excitement.

"No."

"Coward."

The humour in his voice tickled, like a feather.

They sat at the main table on the raised dais, the lady of the manor and her illustrious guest. And illustrious he was: Edward of Woodstock, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Wales, the son and heir of King Edward, the third of his name, by the grace of God King of England, King of France and Lord of Ireland. Edward was easily the most important person who'd ever sat at her table, and just now Joan could have wished him and his amused smirk to the devil.

"Do explain to me again," she said, pitching her voice low enough not to be overheard by Isabella, who sat to her left, "how you came to find yourself on my doorstep."

Edward leaned back in his chair, perfectly at home. "It was the strangest thing," he said. "We were crossing from France, and somehow the ship got blown off course."

"For a man to be aiming for Dover and end up in Lancashire, he must have been blown very off course indeed."

Edward made no reply but simply lifted the goblet to his lips, mischief written all over his countenance. Joan looked away, trying and failing to keep a smile off her face. Truly, smugness should not be so becoming on any man.

The festivities continued well into the night. Stories were told, wine flowed freely, and if there were those of Joan's maids who disappeared halfway through the evening with a handsome knight, the countess did not remark on it, but chose instead to turn a blind eye to what did not concern her. Life was short, after all, and she did not feel compelled to trample on other people's small joys, wherever they might find them, however sinful the church may think them. She left the talk of brimstone and hellfire to Nurse Mildred and Father Quincy.

At long last, the children were ushered off to bed, the food and ale were taken away, and the tables and benches were pushed to the side so that Edward's men could bed down in the relative comfort of the hall. A bedchamber had been prepared for the Prince of Wales, but his knights would have to make do with soft blankets on hard stone. Given that they'd just spent the better part of six months engaged in military campaigns in France, Joan didn't see that they had much cause to complain about her hospitality.

She stayed behind to confer with her steward and her housekeeper. Arrangements had to be made, after all, orders had to be given. And if the delay meant that Edward would already have retired by the time she made her way to her chambers, well, that was unfortunate, in no way deliberate, and certainly not _cowardly_.

Joan could have saved herself the trouble. The moment she stepped out onto the dim-lit corridor, a deep, familiar voice said, "Why hide yourself away in Lancashire when you own larger, richer estates in far more congenial surroundings?"

"I like Lancashire."

She liked this house too, cramped, dark, draughty old place though it was. It put her far away from court. It put her far away from _him_. Joan did not share Father Quincy's view that one had a moral duty to put oneself out of reach of temptation, but nor did she choose to torment herself with the things she could not have.

Pushing away from the wall, Edward closed the space between them, moving with the effortless grace and easy confidence of one who'd been blessed by both nature and fortune. That the Almighty had seen fit to gift a king's son with all the physical and intellectual abilities befitting a prince might be only proper. That He had also chosen to make him quite so handsome smacked of favouritism.

Stopping far too close for comfort, Edward lifted a hand to her face and lightly touched her cheek — a soft, feather-like caress that echoed another such a moment on a different night, in a different corridor, under a different roof.

"I was sorry to hear about your husband's passing," he said.

Joan snorted, a shocking, unladylike sound that she would have allowed herself in no other company. "Were you?"

"I was." The rueful smile softened the sharp edges of his features. "He was a good man and an able soldier. And I hope I'm not so petty as to resent a man for having what I would like for my own."

"Edward—"

"You've turned me away once before, Jeannette," he said, stepping closer against her, settling his hands on her waist. "Will you turn me away again?"

"I was a married woman."

"You're not a married woman now."

No, she wasn't. But she might as well be, for all the difference it made. She couldn't be his, and he could never be hers. Husband or no husband, it made no difference. Joan knew it, and Edward knew it too, for all that he liked to ignore such pesky and inconvenient things as husbands — dead or alive — and royal parents and their royal expectations, and the very real demands of his royal responsibilities.

Tightening his arms around her, Edward pressed their foreheads together, and Joan sighed, closing her eyes and relaxing against him despite herself.

"You shouldn't have come," she said.

"No," he agreed, nuzzling her cheek. "And yet here I am. Yours, if you'll have me."

She couldn't. She desperately wished she could, but wishes were air, and Joan was no longer the girl who'd thought she could have anything she wanted, provided she wanted it hard enough.

Tilting her face up, she kissed him, a soft peck on the lips never meant to go any further. But then Edward kissed her back, a second kiss just as gentle and chaste as the first, and one bad decision spiralled into another one, spiralled into one more. There was nothing chaste about the third kiss, certainly nothing chaste about any of the ones that followed.

Joan's back hit the wall, and she blindly felt her way up Edward's chest, fully intending to push him away. Instead, she tugged on his tunic, urging him closer as they exchanged frantic, desperate kisses. How very easy it was, just then, to forget all about kings and duty and the Church; to forget all about Holland, whom she'd loved and was now dead; and Salisbury, whom she hadn't and was still living. Any thoughts of them were gone, along with sense and reason. Only Edward was left, and his hands on her body, and his tongue parting her lips. He cupped her breasts, pressing her back against the wall, and Joan moaned, low yet unmistakable, the sound muffled by Edward's mouth on hers.

A startled gasp echoed loudly in the dark corridor, and Edward broke away, pushing Joan behind him.

"I'm very sorry, my lady, my lord," someone said, and Joan pressed her forehead against Edward's back, trying to catch her breath, mortification washing over her. "We didn't mean to—We didn't know—"

Will Lister. His family had served the Hollands for generations, and he'd worked in the kitchens since he was little older than Thomas. Why he should be in this part of the house, Joan couldn't begin to explain. She looked over Edward's shoulder to see the young man staring down at his shoes, at a loss for words, his dishevelled appearance and bright-red face obvious even by the weak light of the candles. Next to him stood Henry de Braose, who'd arrived earlier that day with Edward, and who looked as entertained as Will looked discomfited.

"Lost your way, de Braose?" Edward asked in an icy tone that did nothing to quell de Braose's amusement.

"It seems I have, my lord," he said, good-naturedly. "It seems you might have as well."

Edward took a step forward, and Joan grabbed the back of his tunic.

"Will," she said, stepping from behind Edward. This was her home; she would not hide. "Kindly escort our guest back to the hall. And tell a maid to fetch Nurse Mildred and have her attend me in my private parlour."

"Yes, my lady."

If God, in His infinite wisdom, had seen fit to send her deliverance in the guise of Will Lister, Joan would not question it. Divine providence, divine punishment or pure, random chance, it made no odds.

"My lord," she said to Edward, "if you will come with me."

Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heels and made for the stairs, cheeks burning, her mind turning inexorably and rather unhelpfully to all the snide, spiteful words ever said to her or about her over far more restrained behaviour than she'd just displayed.

Joan's private parlour was a comfortable room at the back of the house where she normally sat in the mornings, reading or sewing or tending to the business of the estate. No candles were burning this late in the evening, but the fire in the hearth provided enough light to see by, if not quite enough warmth to entirely banish the cold. Or perhaps there was no chill in the air, just the cold, empty space where Edward had been but moments before.

Ignoring the cold and deeming it only wise to put some distance between them, Joan crossed the room and began to light the candles.

"Nurse Mildred? Really?" If Edward shared in her mortification, he hid it well. "Aren't we past the age for chaperons?"

"Evidently not," she said. "Shall I call for some wine?"

"No, you shouldn't call for any damn wine. Will you please look at me? Joan." She heard him approach before his hand settled on hers, gently taking away the small candle she'd been using to light the rest and putting it down on the holder. "Sweetheart," he pleaded, wrapping warm arms around her and pulling her back against him. "De Braose won't say a word. He knows better than to make an enemy of me. And neither will that kitchen boy of yours, if he knows what's good for him."

It wasn't that. Joan wasn't afraid of gossip. Not really. Not much. The scandal of her first, secret marriage to Holland — which had rather paled next to the scandal of her second, bigamous and eventually annulled marriage to Salisbury — had certainly been an education. After so many years of putting up with impertinent and presumptuous remarks, and of having her affairs discussed, debated and dissected by stable boys and chambermaids and courtiers, to say nothing of some other, rather more important personages than Henry de Braose and Will Lister, she'd grown inured to it. Really. Which wasn't to say that she was eager to court any more scandal than she already had.

"Why did you come?" she asked, leaning back against Edward.

He kissed her temple, his chest solid and warm against her back, his arms steady and familiar around her.

"Why do you think?"

"I think I can't be your wife, Edward. And I won't be your mistress."

He turned her around, so she was looking at him.

"Who the devil says you can't be my wife?"

"Do you want a list? The king. The pope. _Your mother_."

Whatever angry retort Edward had been about to utter died in his lips, and his expression broke into a smile.

"My mother? Really?"

Joan pushed away from him. "Do not make light of it."

"I'm not. Joan, come back here. Please. I will handle my parents. I will handle the pope. I will handle all of Christianity if I have to. Just ask the French. I've been handling them for months."

"And me?" She circled the table in the centre of the room, keeping her eyes on him. "You propose to handle me, as well?"

Edward followed, eyes on her as she kept the table between them.

"If you ask me nicely," he said suggestively, and Joan blushed.

"You have no shame."

"Very little," he readily agreed. "Now will you please stand still and say you'll marry me?"

"No."

"No to which?"

Joan shook her head, biting back a smile. "No to either."

"You know, most ladies in England would leap at the chance of being my wife."

"Perhaps you ought to propose to one of them, then."

"Yes, but you see," he said, his fingers grazing hers on the table, "I want _you_. I've always wanted you. I've loved you for half my life, Joan, and I expect I'll love you for the rest of it until either old age or a Frenchman or God Himself strikes me dead. I said I didn't resent your husband; that was a lie. I did resent him. I begrudged him his happiness. I envied him his good fortune. I hated him for taking you from me. Holland was a good friend and a loyal supporter, and yet I would've taken you to my bed long before this if you had but let me." Joan only realised she'd stopped moving when Edward closed the space between them, pinning her against the table. "I love you," he said, his breath warm on her skin. "I want you. By my side. In my bed. Raising my children. So stop running from me and say you'll marry me."

How very easy — how temptingly, how seductively, how dangerously easy — it would be to just give in. To leave the safety of solid ground behind her and jump off this cliff with him; to trust him to catch her. But Joan was neither that brave nor that trusting, and she was no longer young enough not to care where she landed or whether the fall might kill her.

"No," she said, and Edward sighed.

"Joan—"

"No," she repeated, more firmly, palm pressed against his chest. "Let go."

Joan heard footsteps behind her, but neither she nor Edward turned to look. If Nurse Mildred felt inclined to announce her presence, she quickly conquered the impulse.

Edward stared down at her for one long moment, his expression inscrutable, and then he stepped back, letting go of her.

"No?" he said, a hardness in his voice that Joan had seldom heard, and never directed at her. "Just like that? May I ask why not?"

"The sons of kings," she said, whose lineage was just as distinguished as his, and who could summon just as imperious a tone, "do not marry to please themselves. Your marriage is a matter of state. It will involve treaties and county lines and foreign princesses. As we speak, the king—"

"Oh, hang the king!" If Joan had any doubts that Nurse Mildred was now in the room, the woman's shocked gasp just then would have dispelled them. "I'll give Woodstock to the French. And Lancashire. And Kent. You'd be a foreign princess then. Would that suit?"

"Edward—"

"I'm offering you a crown!"

"I don't want a crown!"

"And I'm offering you my heart!" The words echoed between the stone walls, loud and heated, before dying down, replaced only by the soft crackling of the fire. He added, more softly, "Though I suppose you don't want that either?" Joan made no answer. She could not. The moment she opened her mouth to speak, her voice would break. "I see. Well. There's no more to be said, then. I thank you for your hospitality, my lady countess, but my men and I will ride on and spend the night at Up Holland Priory."

He marched past her without another glance, and Joan did not try to stop him. It was as it should be. It was as it must be. And if it felt like a dagger through the chest, well, if she held still enough for long enough, the pain must surely stop.

* * *

"Here, let me." Isabella took the comb from the maid, adding as she resumed brushing Joan's hair, "If you were going to spend the rest of the night feeling sorry for yourself, you shouldn't have turned him down."

Joan glared at Nurse Mildred, who sat by the fire darning a pair of socks by candlelight with the unconcerned look of one who hadn't been going around telling tales. Why she should have gone to Isabella, of all people, was beyond understanding. Joan's sister-in-law was unlikely to offer any advice that the old woman would approve of.

"I'm not feeling sorry for myself," she protested.

"Really? You're keeping your maids up at this ungodly hour out of an abundance of gaiety?"

It _was_ late. Edward had ridden out over an hour before, and though his abrupt departure had turned the household upside down, the chaos of shouted orders, heavy footsteps and hasty arrangements in the dark had long ago died down. Most of the manor's denizens had found their way back to bed, and so should Joan have done. Both she and Isabella were, in fact, dressed for bed, but Joan was far too restless for sleep.

"He couldn't have married me," she said softly, as Isabella ran the comb down her hair. "Whatever he might say to the contrary."

"Perhaps not," Isabella agreed. "But there's plenty of fun to be had with a man without marrying him."

That dragged a fit of giggles out of one of the maids and caused Nurse Mildred to make a sound so laced with disapproval that Joan couldn't help smiling herself.

"I don't think such an arrangement would suit me," she said.

"I had not thought it should suit me, either, but John and I were very happy together."

Isabella seldom spoke of John de Warenne, whom she'd loved and who'd been dead some ten years. While he'd lived, she had run his household and shared his bed, and showed very little concern for either the world's opinion, or her family's or, indeed, his wife's.

Joan admired her bravery, if not her judgement, but had no wish to follow in her footsteps. The fact of the matter was, Edward would one day marry. He must. He owed it to the crown that would one day be his. And when that they came, if Joan were his mistress, she would either be discarded or have to learn to share him with someone else. She couldn't bear the thought of either.

She was about to explain as much to Isabella when a commotion outside cut her short. The door was thrown open and Edward barged in, causing Isabella to drop the comb, the maids to shriek, and Nurse Mildred to jump to her feet in alarm. Joan rose too, her heart hammering in her chest.

"Have you taken leave of your senses?" she asked.

"Everyone out!" Edward growled. His hair was a windswept mess and his cloak was half soaked through.

Through the open door, Joan could see several of his knights staring down the alarmed servants who found themselves in the unenviable position of having to possibly defend their lady against a group of armed knights and the man who would one day be king.

Edward bellowed another "Out!", and the maids scurried away. But Nurse Mildred looked positively mutinous, and Isabella drew closer to Joan.

"Joan?" she asked.

Joan nodded at her to leave them. She wasn't afraid of Edward, and she couldn't very well yell at him in front of an audience. It wouldn't be seemly.

"Send everyone off to bed," she told Isabella. "I have no wish for any bloodshed right outside my bedroom door."

Very conscious of the fact that she wore nothing more than a flimsy linen smock, she sat back down on the armchair, wrapping her shawl more tightly around herself as Isabella left, taking Nurse Mildred with her. The last thing Joan heard before the door closed behind them was Nurse Mildred's surly, "Well, I never."

And then it was just her and Edward.

The moment the door closed, he crossed the room in two strides and fell down to one knee at her feet, reaching for the dagger at his waist and handing it to her, hilt first.

"Here. If I behave in any way dishonourably, you can stab me with that."

"Do not tempt me, Edward. I might just decide to stab you regardless. How dare you? You are not king yet, and if you were, you'd still have no right to storm in here in this appalling, outrageous, tyrannical—Do not laugh!"

"I'm sorry," he said, still laughing. "You're right, of course. It's an appalling way to behave, and I can only beg your forgiveness and promise not to do so again."

"You shouldn't have done it to begin with. What in God's name were you thinking?"

He reached up with a gloved hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the casual familiarity of it making her chest ache.

"I was thinking," Edward said, his hand coming to rest on the curve of her leg, "that you said a great many things earlier tonight, Jeannette, about why you would not marry me. Things about duty and the pope and the king. You know what you didn't say?"

"What?"

"That you do not love me."

She hadn't said it because it wasn't true. She did love him. Had for a very long time. But they were who they were, and love was immaterial. There were other, more important considerations. Like duty. And the pope. And the king.

Looking away, Joan put the dagger on the table next to her.

"Love is beside the point."

"When it comes to marriage? I should think love is very much the point."

"You're not that naïve, Edward."

"No," he agreed, shifting his weight and settling more comfortably, his arm heavy and warm across her lap. "But I _am_ that powerful. The sons of kings, lady love," he said, echoing her earlier words, "rather tend to get their way. If you don't wish to marry me because you don't wish to marry me, I can accept that. I don't expect I'll accept it with any great measure of grace," he added with a rueful smile, "but I can accept it. But if you don't wish to marry me because you think it impossible, then let me disabuse you of that notion. My titles aren't decorative and my power isn't theoretical. What I want, I can have: all of England, half of France. And you, if you'll take me."

It was the easy, unwavering conviction of one who'd never had to learn any different. But Joan was the daughter of a man who'd found, to his and his family's regret, that there were limits to the power of princes. And though it was not to be supposed that King Edward would deal with his son's defiance in quite the same way he had dealt with Edmund of Woodstock's treason, nor was he likely to simply accept such a blatant challenge to his royal authority.

She ran her fingers through Edward's hair. "Your father's power isn't theoretical either," she said, but Edward smiled.

"My father adores you. He always has. Oh, he'll grumble and rage, and make all manner of absurd threats he has no intention of carrying out. And then he'll send an envoy or fifty to Rome to get us however many dispensations we want. Come, Joan. Have you never married to disoblige your elders?"

She had. Perhaps if she hadn't, she wouldn't think twice about doing so now. But life was a harsh teacher.

"Holland and I—" she began, trying to put it into words. "I was a child, Edward. I was a silly, stubborn, headstrong child who didn't want to be her mother's pawn and who thought a secret marriage would be very daring and romantic. Like in a song. And don't get me wrong, Holland was a good man, and we had a good life. He gave me children and a comfortable home, and in turn I gave him an earldom and a king for a cousin. I'd say it was an equitable exchange, but I remember the price I paid for my choice."

She remembered the secrets and the lying and the fear — for her husband, for herself. She remembered being cornered into marrying Salisbury, despite being married already, and she remembered her mother's fury when the pope himself had to get involved to disentangle that mess. She remembered the king's fury, too, remembered the court's scorn. Most of all, she remembered the impotent rage of finding herself on the wrong side of a locked door while Holland and Salisbury fought it out over who got to keep her, as if she were a trinket or a piece of ribbon or a prize mare.

"It wouldn't be the same." Edward brushed his thumb on her thigh, a gentle, comforting, madly distracting caress. "I am my father's heir, Joan, and I can protect what's mine. From him, if necessary."

Perhaps. But Joan didn't want him to have to. She didn't want that for him. She didn't want that for herself, either. Not again.

Maybe she truly was a coward.

"I'm sorry. I can't."

Edward stared at her for one long moment. And then he shook his head and rose to his feet.

"You still are, you know?" He cupped her face, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "Stubborn and headstrong. I would have torn my beating heart from my chest and laid it out at your feet if you'd so much as asked."

The light pressure of his fingers on her skin lingered even after he turned away, and Joan would have given a kingdom to have them back. Edward was almost at the door when she couldn't bear it anymore.

"Edward, wait." She pushed to her feet, her shawl falling down on the chair, forgotten. "Stay the night."

He glanced back at her over his shoulder. "I will. If I order my men to ride out again at this hour, in this weather, I might just have a mutiny on my hands. We'll leave in the morning."

"No, I mean—" Joan paused, at a loss for words, unsure of how women went about proposing these sort of things. Isabella would have known. "Stay the night," she repeated uselessly, but Edward seemed to get her meaning plainly enough, for he turned to look at her, an amused glint in his eye.

"No. You think I could just spend the night with you and then leave in the morning as if it had never happened? I'm not that strong a man, Jeannette. Do not ask it of me."

But she _was_ asking. Without looking away from him, Joan raised her hands to the strings of her smock and undid them with clumsy fingers before pushing the garment off her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

Edward did not say a word, he did not move a muscle. For one long, excruciating moment all he did was stare, his penetrating gaze intense enough, as it drifted down her body, to leave a trail of goosebumps over her skin. Joan wasn't twenty years old anymore; time, age and five pregnancies had left their mark on her. But if Edward was anything but pleased at the sight before him, that was certainly not in evidence as he drank her in.

"You _are_ cruel," he said, voice like a caress.

"Stay," she repeated.

He moved away from the door, and relief bloomed in her chest. For a moment, she hadn't been sure he would.

Tossing his cloak on a chair, he closed the space between them, gathering her in his arms and pulling her in for a bruising kiss.

"You do not play fair," he said, low and hoarse, his gloved fingers digging into her skin. "Frenchmen have been kinder to me while trying to chop off my head in battle."

Joan laughed. "Kiss me."

"Witch."

But he did kiss her, capturing her mouth in a savage kiss that was all teeth and tongue and barely repressed want. He ran gloved hands down her back and over her buttocks while leading her blindly towards the bed, almost falling and dragging her down with him when his boot caught on her fallen shift. Joan clung to him, laughing.

"Oh yes, madam, very funny," he said, laughter in his voice. "You refuse to marry me, you seduce me through unfair and treacherous means, and then you try to kill me with undergarments."

She grinned, walking backwards towards the bed while fumbling with his belt. "By that count, my sins are heavy indeed."

"I'll say." He nipped the edge of her jaw in mock outrage. His right glove was gone and his hand was hot and calloused against her skin as he touched and squeezed and drove her to distraction.

"You're not helping," she complained, breathless, still doing battle with his fiendish belt.

"Was I meant to be helping?" He trailed kisses down her neck, holding her tightly against him. "I don't think I can reasonably—"

The word cut off on a sharp inhale when Joan closed her fingers around his shaft. She'd managed the belt after all.

"What was that?" Joan asked in her most innocent tone. His member felt hot and heavy between her fingers, the skin soft and silky as she slowly stroked him.

Edward let out a shaky breath, leaning his forehead against hers. "As I said: unfair and treacherous means." He captured her mouth in a deep, lingering kiss, broken by a moan. "Enough," he said, grabbing her wrist. Though his eyes were blue, they looked almost completely black in the dim light of the room. "Get on the bed."

Joan did not argue, but climbed on the bed without looking away from him, watching unabashedly as he discarded the rest of his clothes. Edward was a joy to behold. He had the strong, toned body of a soldier and a head of dark, messy curls that looked particularly unruly just now. A dusting of dark hair covered his chest, doing very little to hide the collection of scars that chronicled a life largely spent from one battlefield to the next.

His trousers went the same way of his boots and tunic, and Joan blushed at the sight of him. She'd known he was hard, of course, had felt it plainly enough, his shaft hot and pulsating between her fingers, but there was no denying that it was an impressive sight.

Not that she had much basis for comparison, but nevertheless.

Edward's muscles shifted under his skin as he climbed on the bed and crawled to her, pushing her down on the mattress and settling half on top of her.

"If I could keep you in this bed forever, I would," he said, brushing his lips against her in the teasing ghost of a kiss.

"Wouldn't your knights miss you?"

He chuckled and kissed her again, properly this time. "Let them."

Joan wouldn't mind staying in this bed forever, either. Outside her bedroom door there were obligations and difficulties, and King Edward and Pope Innocent and William Montagu and the spectre of Thomas Holland. On this bed there was only her and Edward, and his hands on her and his weight pinning her down.

The room filled with faint sighs and breathless moans as they kissed and teased and touched each other until Joan thought she might shake out of her skin with need. The moment Edward buried himself deep inside her, her heart almost stopped from the sheer perfection of it.

* * *

The fire had burned down to embers and the sky outside had begun to lighten.

Joan smiled sleepily as Edward traced the edges of her face with feather-light fingers. She bit the pad of his thumb and he chuckled, leaning forward to kiss her, soft and sweet.

She didn't want him to go. Ever. She wanted him to stay. She wanted this one moment frozen in time, an eternity of the two of them as they were just now: happy and sated and close enough to touch.

And if she couldn't have that, she wanted this moment to last a little while longer. She wanted to tie a rope around the sun and keep it down for a few more hours — or days or years.

What a fool she'd been to think she could have him once and then let him go. Isabella hadn't managed it either with John de Warenne, something Joan should have considered when taking her undeniably misguided advice.

"Edward," she said slowly, staring at where her fingers touched his chest. "Do you still—Would you still—"

He pressed a finger to her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze. "Would I still what?" Joan bit her lip, trying to find the right words, but she need not have bothered. The smile that spread across Edward's face was knowing and wicked and bright enough to light up the room. God above, she wanted him to look at her like that always. "Is this a marriage proposal?" he asked.

Joan smiled. "Yes. Will you marry me?"

He rolled on top of her, grinning. "Yes," he said, kissing her. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

The conversation did not proceed much beyond that point as they found themselves otherwise engaged in more pleasurable occupations. It was a very long time before they had the breath or the focus to devote to mere words, by which point the sun was already high in the sky.

It was shockingly late for them to still be abed, and it would have been shockingly late even had they been husband and wife. As it was, it was positively scandalous, but so had the entire night been, and Joan discovered that she couldn't bring herself to care. It was the thing about happiness: it blotted out all the things that didn't truly matter.

"What made you change your mind?" Edward's chest moved under her head as he spoke.

Joan shrugged, unable to explain it. She had no words for how full her heart was.

Edward lifted the covers, making a show of looking down at himself before letting it drop. "Well, madam, you certainly know how to flatter a man."

She burst out laughing. "That's not—What an outrageous thing to say!"

"Here's an even more outrageous one." He rolled to the side so that they were looking at each other. "We're going to get up and get dressed and make sure the house is still standing. And then, we're going to walk down to the village church and get married."

"It won't—"

"—be valid. I know. But I want to marry you. Today. Before you come to your senses." He kissed the tip of her nose, and Joan smiled. "It will be just me and you and God. What could be more perfect? And I promise you that before the year is out, we'll have ourselves a big royal wedding in front of the entire court, with the king's blessing, with him and my mother in attendance, and enough papal delegates to fill all the churches in England, even if I have to drag them all the way from Rome myself."

Joan smiled and nodded, her smile growing wider as he kissed her.

She was no longer the girl who'd jumped off a cliff with her eyes closed, trusting the wind to catch her. This time she was jumping with open eyes. She might not share Edward's unwavering certainty that it would all be plain sailing and that he could protect her from the world, but she loved him. She trusted him to try. And she trusted herself to stand on her own two feet.


End file.
